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At Petersen, Cars That Cheated the Wind, if Not Always Gracefully

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At Petersen, Cars That Cheated the Wind, if Not Always Gracefully

By Phil Patton June 12, 2012 6:00 amJune 12, 2012 6:00 am

Lane Motor Museum1928 Martin Aerodynamic, the oldest model on display in “Aerodynamics: From Art to Science.”

Bullet- and torpedo-shaped cars have been around almost as long as the automobile. Instinctively, early car designers gravitated toward shapes that would make their cars move more rapidly through the air.

Leslie Kendall, the museum’s curator, said in a telephone interview that early designers derived inspiration not from artillery but from “aiming their eyes at the sky” and observing aircraft. One result was the oddball 1928 Martin Aerodynamic, the oldest car in the show, borrowed from the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, one of three prototypes made by James V. Martin.

Martin was one of the aforementioned designers who looked to aircraft, Mr. Kendall said. “They found shapes they believed would make terrestrial vehicles move more rapidly and smoothly,” he said. The Martin Aerodynamic adapted ideas from the aero pioneer Paul Jaray.

As the show’s name suggests, scientific rigor and aesthetic considerations did not always cohabit. There was much art and little science, for instance, in the 1938 Delahaye on display. The French coach-built car is, of course, gorgeous, “but I have a hunch it never went anywhere near a wind tunnel,” Mr. Kendall said. “Streamline is not always aerodynamic.”

On the other hand, the 1935 Chrysler and De Soto Airflow radically upended the aesthetic standards of their time, and were consequently unpopular. It had a low coefficient of drag, “but its stubby front was off-putting, and the buyers stayed away in droves,” Mr. Kendall said. The similar but more attractive Lincoln Zephyr of 1936 found much greater favor with the public.

After the arrival of high-speed highways in the ’30s, streamlining led to the gradual coalescence of the shape of the automobile into a single, unified form. Projecting elements, like separated headlights, trunk and fenders, were gradually integrated into a whole, Mr. Kendall said.

The Petersen’s own collection affords examples of the Tatra 87 of 1938 and sleek Fiats and Citroëns. BMW lent its 328 Mille Miglia Kamm Tail from 1940, which for Mr. Kendall represented the idea of seeking aero efficiency in motorsports.

“Instead of increasing the power of an engine, why not make the car move with less energy?” the engineers reasoned, according to Mr. Kendall. But the rear end, clipped to meet with the precepts of the aerodynamicist Dr. Wunibald Kamm, was not necessarily attractive.

BMW Group1940 BMW 328 Mille Miglia Kamm Tail.

Art and science are well-represented in the 1955 Ghia Streamline X concept, nicknamed Gilda when it was first shown, after the title character in a 1946 film starring Rita Hayworth. The car, a stunner belonging to the collectors Scott Grundfor and Kathleen Redmond, suggests a spaceship from some unmade Fellini science fiction film, starring Sophia Loren.

The 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona muscle car, with its huge, high wing and pointed nose cone, brought legitimate aero to muscle cars, Mr. Kendall said, but it was not a vehicle to drive to the corner for a quart of milk.

Ford’s 1979 Probe 1 concept was one of a series of cars that led to the popular aero look seen in the 1983 Thunderbird (Mr. Kendall said he would have included the aero ‘bird, but had trouble finding a good example) and then the breakthrough 1986 Taurus.

Scott Grundfor1979 Ford Probe I concept.

Also included in the survey is a scale model of perhaps the ultimate aero car, created in 2005 by students at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, with a minuscule .075 coefficient of drag.

Aerodynamics are important not just for speed and efficiency, Mr. Kendall said, but for keeping dirt and moisture from building up on vehicles and to reduce interior noise.

Stricter fuel-economy standards make aerodynamic science all the more important, he added. Designers and engineers spend hours with aerodynamic experts in the wind tunnel. Tiny tweaks to side mirrors or taillight shapes can lower a car’s coefficient of drag, a critical number in the marketing of passenger cars. But designers have noted that strange interactions can occur among elements of the car body in the wind tunnel. Many contend that streamlining at the extremes is not so much science as it is a black art.

As science devises new ways to cheat the wind, however, Mr. Kendall says there would always be room for the artist.

“When you get in a car you wrap yourself in that shape,” he said. “It becomes you. It is your outermost layer of clothes. You have to ask, is this how you want to express yourself?”

The exhibition runs through May 27, 2013, in the museum’s Gordon R. Howard Gallery.

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